


like real people do

by singsongsung



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Pining, Pre-Canon, Pre-Relationship, Robot Baby, Teens Attempting Faux Parenthood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-18
Updated: 2017-08-18
Packaged: 2018-12-16 05:07:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11821842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singsongsung/pseuds/singsongsung
Summary: "Eighth grade health class is, for lack of a better word, torturous."Betty, Jughead, and ten days with an infant simulator.





	like real people do

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jandjsalmon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jandjsalmon/gifts), [Raptorlily](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raptorlily/gifts).



> For jandjsalmon. Happy birthday to the momma duck of the bughead fam!
> 
> And for raptorlily, who provided me with the prompt for this fic! Thank you for helping your friendly resident angst monster write something (at least somewhat) fluffy.
> 
> Title from the Hozier song of the same name.

_and your heart was a bird_  
_scared, still, and alone_  
_and the only thing she ever cared for_  
_and your heart was forgotten_  
_alone on the floor_  
_she picked it up_  
_brushed it of dust._  
\- cara salimando, “dust”

 

 

 

**zero**.

Eighth grade health class is, for lack of a better word, torturous. The sex education unit lasts for six whole weeks, during which they’re separated according to anatomy for only two classes; while some mysterious wisdom is departed to the girls, and Jughead sits among his male classmates, watching slideshows and videos and being shown diagrams, trying to ignore the more boisterous members of his class, who are determined to give the impression that they’re already sexually active and are making a series of increasingly cringe-worthy dirty jokes.

For the rest of the classes, he shares a two-person desk with Betty Cooper, who smells so much like a cupcake that it could almost make his mouth water, and whose proximity he is acutely aware of as their long-suffering Phys. Ed. teacher pulls slips of paper out of the box that had just been passed around and answers anonymous questions, including _how many calories are in sperm?_ and _can you get pregnant if you swallow?_ He hadn’t written anything on his own piece of paper, but Betty had scribbled something on hers, her hand cupped around it to keep her words private.

He sat down next to her on the first day of class, when she’d waved at him and chirped, “Hey, Juggie!” He’d forgotten that this unit was on the horizon. The last thing he wants in the _world_ is to be sitting next to her as they practice rolling condoms onto bananas (he’d allowed himself one single peek over at her and found her taking the task very seriously, lower lip drawn into her mouth, faint pink spots high on her cheeks), but it’s not like he can move. Students are creatures of habit: your desk on the first day of a class is your desk for the rest of the year. Besides, what would he say? _Betty, I can’t sit next to you because you’re too pretty and you smell too good, and having you next to me while we discuss the mechanics of penetrative sex is melting my brain?_

Absolutely not.

So he sits.

Betty doesn’t seem to think there’s anything weird about it. She still makes small talk with him before class and treats him normally at lunch. She avoided looking at him during the whole condom-on-banana thing, but aside from Reggie, who was acting like an idiot, most people weren’t glancing up from their latex-encased fruit. When they watched a video of childbirth, she grabbed onto his sleeve at one point, making a face he could only describe as horrified, and whispered an apology after she realized what she was doing.

She’s still treating him like a friend, which makes sense, because they are friends, even if that friendship is sometimes slightly tenuous, glued together by Archie, who is their most significant common point of interest, but still. Betty’s his friend, and she’s wanted to marry Archie since kindergarten, so she doesn’t seem to find it odd to sit next to him while they’re educated (allegedly) about sex. She hasn’t noticed him, like he’s been noticing her over the past months, or maybe the past year, at this point. To her, he’s still just her pal Jughead, but to him -

To him, she’s more than she’s been before, more than sweet little Betty Cooper who so often wore her hair in pigtails, and who could be a bit of a know-it-all, but in a fairly charming way, and whose polka-dot underwear he used to see flashes of when she turned cartwheels in the Andrews’ backyard. Now, her hair is often tied back in a smooth, tight ponytail, and when she corrects something he’s said he finds himself staring at tiny smile on her mouth that’s half apology and half _duh_ , and the mere thought of seeing her underwear, in any context, is enough to make the back of his neck burn. It is obvious to him that the beginnings of puberty have been very kind to her. She doesn’t need braces and the planes of her face have shifted, making her cheekbones, her jawline, a bit more pronounced. Her body is starting to show curves where there were once straight lines, and while Archie has had a dedicated interest in boobs for quite a while now, Jughead is only interested in Betty’s v-neck sweaters and the way the fabric seems to dip dangerously sometimes when she’s bent studiously over a notebook. And when Archie says something that makes her smile, or laugh, there’s a glow in her eyes so bright that it's almost difficult to look at her - that’s how beautiful she becomes.

Torturous: that’s what eighth grade health class is, in more ways than one.

 

 

 

 

**one.**

By the time they’re two weeks away from the end of the unit, Jughead assumes the worst is over.

It turns out he’s wrong.

After they’ve all shuffled into third period on Monday, their teacher holds up a creepily realistic-looking plastic infant and says, “Welcome to parenthood. You’re going to spend the next ten days taking care of your own little bundle of joy. Due to budgetary restrictions, the school doesn’t have enough of these for you each to have your own, so take a look at your desk mate - the two of you are now co-parents.”

Jughead goes completely, utterly still, his fingers closed in a white-knuckle grip around his mechanical pencil.

“This is a _joint_ project,” their teacher continues. “You will split the nights evenly - five each - and you will sign an agreement, which you will submit to me, outlining which one of you will be taking the infant home each night. Each of the dolls - excuse me, babies - will collect data relating to when and how its needs are attended to. You and your partner will receive a mutual grade _unless_ it is obvious that one of you has been neglectful, in which case you will be assigned a four-thousand word essay. Understood?”

Mumblings fill the classroom, and Jughead turns, hoping to catch Archie’s eye. His best friend is otherwise occupied, though: he’s sitting at a desk with Reggie, and they’re regarding each other with uncertainty all over their faces - it would be hilarious if Jughead wasn’t also freaking out.

Holding in a sigh, he forces himself to look at Betty and finds that she’s smiling at him. It takes a few seconds, but then he understands why: Betty wants an A, and he’s the kind of partner who can help her get one.

The teacher begins to hand out the infant dolls, and Betty leans in a little closer to him, smile still on her lips. “I’m glad I’m not with Archie,” she confesses in a whisper, and Jughead’s heart does several consecutive somersaults.

 

 

 

 

They have two extra guests at their lunch table, one on Archie’s lap and one on Betty’s, since they’ve discovered the babies don’t take kindly to being laid down on hard surfaces. Betty, of course, had volunteered to take the first shift of simulated parenthood, and she’s got the doll sitting upright on her lap, its back against her stomach, as she eats slices of apple. Kevin is without his doll; he’s paired with Midge (“Moose keeps _staring_ at us like I’m going to steal his girlfriend, it’s _so weird_ ”) and she’s got their doll with her at the table she’s sitting at with her friends.

“What did you guys name it?” Archie asks. Crumbs from his Doritos are falling onto his baby, which is probably not A+ parenting.

“We didn’t name it, Arch,” Jughead says. “It’s not a real person.”

Archie shrugs and points at his fake kid. “Reg and I named him Tron,” he says, which makes Betty giggle, her expression melting into fondness.

Jughead focuses all his attention on his fries, but a moment later Betty says, “Maybe we _should_ name it, actually. That might make us take caring for it more seriously. It’s kind of hard to really care about the wellbeing of something you call ‘it,’ you know?”

It seems unnecessary to him, but Betty’s eyes are wide and bright with hope, and he acquiesces in spite of himself. “Okay.”

“Great! What do you think her name should be?”

The doll’s sex is archaically indicated by the fact that she’s wearing a pink onesie; Archie’s is dressed in blue. Jughead looks at it and then shrugs, dunking a fry in ketchup. “I don’t know. Jane?”

“Come on, Juggie,” Betty sighs, her bottom lip poking out ever-so-slightly. “Be a little more creative.” She thinks for a moment, then says, “How about Felicity?”

He narrows his eyes at her. “Wasn’t that the name of your American Girl doll?”

Betty mumbles something that may or may not be _no_ , but Archie grins and says, “Yeah, it totally was.”

Jughead shakes his head. “No way. I veto it.”

“Your turn to make a suggestion, then,” Betty says, taking a bite of her sandwich.

He takes a minute to think and then looks at her out of the corner of his eye and suggests, somewhat slyly, “How about Rosemary?”

Betty glances over at him, and he’s pleased to see a glimmer of mirth in her eyes. “She _does_ look like she might be a bit of a hellion,” she jokes.

“That’s it, then,” he says. “Rosemary the baby.” And all of a sudden, their creepy doll-child has a name.

“Wait,” Archie says. “I don’t get it.”

 

 

 

 

**two.**

Betty arrives at school the next day looking a little less put-together than usual, a few wisps escaping from her normally perfect ponytail. She doesn’t seem able to muster up her typical chipper expression. She marches up to him in the hall, Rosemary tucked securely under one arm - they can’t hold the doll upside down, or by one arm, but at least they don’t have to worry about holding it like an actual baby and always supporting its neck - and says, flatly, “She cries.”

Jughead studies her for a moment. It’s not often that he sees Betty grumpy, and she’s kind of… cute, like this. “A lot?”

“I finished my homework later than normal because I was taking care of her. And then, when I _finally_ got to bed, she woke me up four times.” She sighs and hands over the doll. “I remember when Polly did this assignment - one night the baby was crying so much that my dad and I both snuck down to the rec room in the basement and slept in sleeeping bags. But… I don’t know.” She inspects Rosemary with serious green eyes, like the infant doll contains the answer to an unspoken question. “I guess I just thought I could handle it better, or something.”

He smiles slightly, holding the doll in the crook of one elbow. “Betty, it’s a baby. I mean, not a real baby, but - well, you know what I mean. The point of the assignment isn’t to stop it from crying. No one can do that. You’re just supposed to take care of it when it cries, and I’m sure you did.”

Betty smiles back. It’s a soft little thing, a spot of sunshine on her otherwise cloudy face. “She,” she reminds him, “Not it.”

“Right.”

The bell rings, and Betty breathes another sigh. “I’ve got to get to Math. Thanks, Jug. I’ll see you guys at lunch.”

 

 

 

 

The baby behaves pretty well for him during the school day. At lunchtime, he gives Betty a run-down on the morning, like it’s totally normal to be discussing simulated feeding and simulated diaper changes and crying jags in their school cafeteria. She seems pleased with his report and offers him an oreo.

Archie also looks tired, and is slumped over the table, an energy drink of some sort at his elbow. “The only kind of nice thing,” he says, looking up at Betty, “is that when I woke up at three-thirty, I saw that your light was on, too.”

“We’re all in it together,” she says, her eyes taking on that glow they only ever get when Archie’s around, and Jughead suddenly feels completely and utterly stupid for how he’d been proud of making her smile that morning.

 

 

 

 

At home in the evening, Rosemary is only an accessory compared to the parenting duties he must complete for his living, breathing little sister. Their mother is currently working two jobs, and he suspects she’s at Pop’s, savouring a cup of coffee and a moment of peace before she begins her night shift. Part of him understands how tired she must be; part of him feels acutely abandoned. He does not know where their father is.

He puts a frozen pizza in the oven and ‘feeds’ Rosemary, sticking the soother-shaped object that her software will register as a bottle in her mouth. Afterward, she begins to emit a series of high-pitched automated cries that make him wince as he automatically lifts her to his shoulder and pats her plastic back. She eventually makes a burping sound, which he’s never heard before, and he and Jellybean both crack up.

His sister is intrigued by the baby; she happily holds Rosemary while he does the dishes, and reluctantly gives the infant doll up when he tells her that she’s got to get her homework done.

After Jellybean’s asleep, Jughead does his own homework, Rosemary on the couch next to him, and then watches TV for a few minutes. She cries, and when he checks, he finds that the light that signals a wet diaper is on. He presses the button that will indicate that she’s been changed, and goes to bed.

The baby begins to cry when it’s almost one in the morning, jolting him from sleep. Eyes half open, he scrambles around, searching for her feeding object. He can’t find it right away, so he picks her up and rocks her, hoping that at least the volume of the terrible, unending pattern of wails coming from her can be fixed with comforting gestures.

It’s just when he’s finally found the soother-thing that Jellybean appears in the doorway of his room, her eyes wide and wet. She’s got a stuffed elephant in her hand and her hair is a wild mess; in her Minnie Mouse PJs, she looks very small, and for the millionth time there is a pang in Jughead’s chest that seems to reverberate through his body. Jellybean’s so young. It isn’t fair that, most of the time, he’s all she’s got.

“Sorry, Jelly,” he sighs. “It’s cool. I’m going to get her to be quiet.”

Jellybean’s lower lip quivers. “Mommy and Dad aren’t home,” she says.

A weight settles in his stomach. This has never happened before, thanks to the fact that his sister is a miraculously deep sleeper; she’s never known that there are nights when their mother is working that their father doesn’t stumble in until dawn is just beginning to break.

“It’s not a big deal,” he says in the calmest voice he can muster. “Mom’s at work, remember?”

“But where’s Dad?” she asks tremulously.

_I don’t know_ does not seem like the right thing to say, nor does _probably drinking somewhere_ , so Jughead settles on, “He’s busy, too, but it’s okay, Jellybean. I’m here, right?”

“But - ”

“It’s okay,” he says again, lifting Rosemary up in one arm and approaching his sister. He sets his hand gently on her shoulder and steers her back toward her own room. “Let’s go back to sleep, and when you wake up, Mom will be home.”

She clutches her elephant tightly to her chest, dragging her feet a bit as he nudges her along. “But Daddy should be here _now_.”

“I know.” He untangles her sheets as best as he can with one hand, and then lifts them so that she can crawl into the bed. Once she’s laid her head on the pillow and he’s tucked her in, he crouches down in front of her so that he can look into her eyes. “I’ll always take care of you, Jelly,” he tells her softly. “Even if Mom’s not here, even if Dad’s not here - I am. I’m here.”

There’s unadulterated trust in her eyes, which are so similar to his save for the fact that they contain a bit more grey. “Okay, Juggie,” she whispers.

“Time for sleep,” he says, and waits until her eyes fall shut to straighten up again. He pops the pacifer out of Rosemary’s mouth as he tiptoes out of the room, and pats her back steadily on his way back to his own bed.

 

 

 

 

**three.**

On Wednesday, they play volleyball in gym class.

As usual, Jughead has no interest in being there. On the _un_ usual side of things, a series of doll-babies are lined up against the wall, placed upon various soft objects. Rosemary is resting on a carefully-folded hoodie of Betty’s. He spends nearly the whole class trying to temper the deeply fond sort of exasperation he feels at the sight of Betty darting over to check on the baby at every possible opportunity.

And maybe he’s feeling a little more than amusement, something other than an urge to roll his eyes at how committed she is to this project. Maybe he’s also a little flustered by the repeated image of Betty bending over to adjust Rosemary’s position in some way or another. Unlike many of the girls in their class, she doesn’t flout the school’s Phys. Ed. dress code to show off newly acquired curves; she doesn’t wear tiny shorts or shirts that bare an inch or two of midriff, and she’s not wearing a stitch of spandex. But she is growing, as they all are, and her dark purple shorts don’t obey the as-long-as-your-middle-finger-with-arms-straight-by-your-sides rule, displaying long legs that seem to be responsible for much of her current height, and almost, _almost_ revealing a hint of butt-cheek when she bends straight over at the waist rather than crouching.

Reggie Mantle elbows him hard enough to hurt. “Looks like someone likes playing house with Cooper,” he snickers. “You want little miss priss to have your weird loner babies?”

Jughead glares at him and moves away, refusing to dignify those comments with a response, but his eyes automatically flicker toward Archie, searching for signs of confusion or even jealously. Unsurprisingly, however, Archie is oblivious, not paying any attention at all.

Betty materializes at his side, blonde ponytail bouncing. “I feel like she’s going to get hit with a ball. Am I crazy?”

“Yes,” he says, and manages to maintain a straight face for only a few seconds before he cracks a small smile.

She frowns, but there’s no anger in her eyes. “You’d be worried if it was your day.”

“I don’t know, Betts. I think if a ball starts flying toward her, that’s a prime opportunity to learn how to walk. Survival of the fittest, you know?”

Abruptly, the side of her body collides with the side of his as she hip-checks him out of the way, leaning in front of him slightly to give the volleyball a bump, preventing it from smacking him directly in the chest.

She tucks a lock of hair that’s escaped her ponytail neatly behind one ear and teases, “You were saying, Darwin?”

Where their arms had touched, his skin still tingles.

 

 

 

 

**four.**

The second night that Jughead’s responsible for Rosemary, everything goes to shit.

His mother is home to make dinner, and the baby isn’t being too bothersome; he’s got her cradled in one arm, her pacifer-thing in her mouth, while he shovels mac and cheese into his own mouth, holding his fork in his free hand. Jellybean is pouting, sniffling over her own dinner because she wants to take ballet classes with her friend Kayla and their mother said no.

“What is that thing supposed to teach you, exactly?” Gladys asks. “How to be a parent?” She hasn’t eaten much from her own bowl of pasta.

“I think it’s supposed to show you how hard it is,” Jughead says. He puts down his fork and removes the ‘bottle’ from Rosemary’s mouth. She immediately starts emitting a whining sound that’s usually quite easy to stop, and sure enough, when he starts patting her back, she goes silent. “You know, so you won’t have a kid before you’re ready. Or at least you’ll try not to.”

“It’s good that they’re trying to each you some real lessons,” his mother says. Her gaze is turned inward; she looks so tired, so reisigned. A bit of her vibrant lipstick has escaped the lines of her mouth, smudged at one corner.

He wonders if he’d love Rosemary, were she real, or if he’d resent her. He wonders if he’d feel like she stole every chance he’d ever had away. He wonders if he’d try to pretend otherwise. He wonders if one day he’d be too exhausted to pretend.

He wonders if every line on his mother’s face originates with his existence.

 

 

 

 

At four o’clock, his father comes home drunk. It is still dark outside, still dark in their rickety little house. Jughead wakes not at the sound of the front door slamming shut but a few minutes later, when Rosemary begins to wail. He forces his tired eyes open and begins to undo the snaps on her onesie to check if the light signalling a dirty diaper is on.

It seems like only seconds pass before there are heavy footsteps in the hallway and his father’s voice thunders, “What the hell is going on?” Jughead hears no repsonse to the question, only the sound of Jellybean bursting into tears, the stuttering, breathless sound of her sobs a sharp contrast to Rosemary’s monotonous wails.

“It’s Jughead,” he hears his mother say in a snappish whisper. “A school project. For god’s sake, FP - ”

“How exactly was I supposed to know, Gladys, I hear this fucking _wailing_ , think Jellybean’s hurt - ”

“And how exactly would you help her, in this condition?” Gladys demands, now speaking at a normal volume. “You’re drunk off your ass, it’s the middle of the night, and here you are scaring your daughter. What kind of parenting do you think you’re about to do, hm?”

“Don’t you dare - ”

“ _Mommy_ ,” Jellybean says in a warbling voice, still crying.

“You’re _fine_ , Forsythia,” Gladys says shortly, having reached the limits her patience. “Go back to bed - Jughead!”

He takes the few short steps to his bedroom door and opens it, only to be met with the sight of his family, all of their eyes pinned on him, all full of such different things: sleepiness and shock in Jellybean’s, quiet frustration in his mother’s, and his father’s full of a hazy sort of anger.

“Can you shut that thing up?” Gladys asks, her exasperation clear.

“I’m trying,” he says, shoving the pacifer into Rosemary’s mouth. “I’m sorry, Dad,” he adds. “She’s programmed to cry every few hours.”

FP squints, his eyes red, his mouth slowly taking the shape of a crooked smile. “You play with dolls now, son?” He reaches for Rosemary, and as he pulls her from Jughead’s hold, the pacifer falls to the floor and her wailing begins anew.

“She’s a project,” Jughead says quickly, almost frantically. “It’s an assignment, for school.” He has a sudden vision of his father dropping the doll, and his grade plummeting in tandem. Not just his grade, but Betty’s, too - and she’s trusting him to be good at this, to be a good partner.

(She was happy to be paired with him, happy not to be with Archie.)

“C’mon, Dad, please,” he says, reaching out. “I’ll get her to be quiet.”

“What kind of school gives you a grade for taking care of a robot, uh?” FP asks, still wearing that crooked smile, which is more troubling than it is comforting.

“Someone has to teach him responsibility,” Gladys says as Jughead carefully eases the doll from his father's hands. Her voice is low, dangerously quiet. “It’s not like he has a role model at home.”

FP turns slowly toward her. The air in their home grows thick and heavy like the humidity that precedes a storm, as though at any moment lightning might strike right through the ceiling. Jellybean begins to weep again, sensing the change in atmosphere.

“Enough with this _goddamn preaching_ ,” FP begins, his voice deep as a growl, and Jughead closes his fingers around his sister’s small, skinny wrist and yanks her into his room, closing the door firmly behind him.

Rosemary stops crying long before Jellybean does. She curls up into a ball in his blankets and sobs, trying to muffle the sound, wiping her nose on the sleeve of her pyjama shirt. When she finally falls asleep, Jughead remains awake, sitting upright on his bed, leaning against the wall. His parents stopped screaming when his mother stormed out, and his father is probably passed out on the couch - the fighting is over, but he still feels compelled to be alert, his body thrumming with adrenaline.

The infant doll isn’t teaching him any lessons he hasn’t learned already. He knows, looking at Jellybean with her body balled up tight in the foetal position, that this is no place for a small person.

 

 

 

 

**five.**

Jughead gets to school early and manages to snag a twenty-five minute nap in the library. He sets Rosemary down on his sherpa-lined coat, and by some miracle she stays silent until the alarm blaring through his headphones pulls him from sleep. He’s able to get to Betty’s locker about ten seconds before the bell rings, which is just enough time to hand Rosemary off before they go their separate ways for first period.

He sees Betty again in History class - she looks at him with her head tiltly minutely, her eyes thoughtful, but all she says is, “Hi.” She has to leave the room at one point because Rosemary is wailing, and despite the fact that he’s so exhausted he feels like a zombie, he makes sure to take good notes for the fifteen minutes she’s gone.

He’s on the way to the cafeteria for lunch, looking forward to gaining some temporary energy by eating two to three slices of chocolate pie, when Betty’s hand hooks into the crook of his elbow. “Can I talk to you for a sec, Jug?” she asks, and tugs him away from the cafeteria doors without waiting for a response. He casts a longing look over his shoulder; he was so close to pie.

Betty pulls him down the hallway just enough so that they’re out of the way of the traffic streaming toward the caf. She’s wearing a pink blouse and a white cardigan and she’s got Rosemary sitting on her hip like the doll is an actual baby, and she looks like a suburban mom, but in a cute way, which is sort of a confusing thing for his brain to process.

“Are you okay?” she asks. “Did she live up to her name last night or something? You look tired. And… kind of out of it.”

“Yeah, I had kind of a rough night,” he admits. He rubs at the back of his neck and looks down at the tiled floor, studiously avoiding her imploring gaze. “It wasn’t her, though. She should be fine for you.”

“If it wasn’t Rosemary, then what happened?” Betty asks in that soft, sweet voice of hers. The ache inside of him, previously wrapped so tight, wavers a bit, threatening to unravel.

“Nothing; s’not important.”

“Juggie,” she murmurs, and he’s reminded that she’s the only person in the world, besides his sister, and Archie, who is basically his brother, who ever calls him that. She’s Betty. She’s his friend, and right now, she’s also his co-parent.

“She… was crying in the middle of the night,” he says, meeting Betty’s eyes for only an instant before he waves a hand toward Rosemary. “It freaked my dad out, he didn’t know I had her - ” He realizes as soon as he says those words how incriminating they are - he’s already had Rosemary for one night this week, how could a good father not know? He rushes on, “And… I don’t know, he got kind of mad, my parents argued, and Jellybean was - ” He swallows down the rest of his sentence. “Like I said, no big deal, just - ”

Betty’s fingers wrap gently around his wrist. It’s not all that different from how he held his sister’s wrist last night - it’s a guiding touch, a grounding one. “Jug,” she says quietly.

With a sigh, he forces himself to look her in the eye, which immediately feels like a mistake. There is so much there, in her face: sympathy that manages not to shift into pity, that ever-present Betty Cooper kindness, and something caring and gentle that’s hard to look at.

“It was just an off night,” he says lamely, and when her mouth opens, undoubtedly to protest, he gives his head a tiny shake. He absolutely cannot talk about this any more and she _definitely_ can’t keep staring at him with that gleam in her wide eyes. He’s scared that he’ll cry.

She understands that he wants the conversation to be over, but one corner of her mouth twists downward, indicating her reluctance to leave it at this, to accept what he’s said and move on. She’s quiet for a minute, her eyes narrowed slightly, and then she says, firmly, “I’ll take her for the rest of the nights.”

He blinks, surprised. “What? No. No, Betts, we signed that agreement, remember? We split the nights evenly.”

She lifts her chin. “I won’t tell if you won’t.”

“Betty - ”

“Juggie,” she returns, and he can hear her stubbornness slipping into her voice like steel, rendering every one of his counter-points moot. “I’ll take her.”

He can’t argue with her. He won’t win, and besides, it _will_ be helpful, if she can do this. He’s hoping Jellybean is done with midnight crying jags, at least for a while, and Rosemary’s absence should help make that hope a reality.

He turns his wrist, shifting her grip on it, and then grabs her fingers with his own, giving them a grateful squeeze.

“Thank you,” he manages to say.

She nods, giving him a little smile. He releases her hand.

 

 

 

 

**six.**

The Coopers’ number is one of the only two Jughead has memorized. On Saturday, after he’s walked Jellybean to a birthday-party-plus-sleepover that will surely have her returning home sleepy and grumpy the next day, he eats two peanut butter sandwiches, and then he dials it.

Three rings later, a cheerful voice greets, “Hello, Cooper residence!”

“Betty?” he asks.

“Hang on, I’ll get her for you,” Polly says, and a second later he hears her call her sister’s name.

“Hello?” Betty says a moment later.

“Hey. It’s me. Jughead.”

“Hey, Jug. How are you?”

He smiles. Her politeness is so deeply ingrained, he wonders sometimes if Alice hammed it into her head when she was no bigger than their infant doll. “I was thinking that I could come over,” he says. “If you wanted. I feel bad that you’re doing all the night work - ”

“You don’t have to feel bad,” she says quickly.

“Well, I just thought… the least I could is come over for a bit and help out during the day. I can do the feeding and the bodily function stuff and all that. I know the worst part is the crying at night, but…” He trails off and then regroups: “I know you’re going to get us an A, and I want to at least _try_ to earn my share of it.”

“Sure,” she says easily. “Come on over.”

 

 

 

 

Betty opens the door when he arrives. She’s dressed down, wearing sweatpants and a baseball tee, her hair in two braids. “Rosie, look,” she says to the baby in her hold. “Your father has graced us with his presence.” She offers Jughead a teasing smile.

He rolls his eyes in response, stepping inside and toeing off his sneakers. “Rosie?” he repeats.

Betty shrugs one shoulder, looking mildly embarrassed. “Rosemary’s a lot of name for something small,” she says. “Let’s go up to my room. I was just trying to figure out how to knit her a beanie to match yours.”

“Oh,” he says, breathing out something between a sigh and a laugh as he follows her up the stairs. “She thinks she’s funny on Saturdays.”

She looks over her shoulder to stick her tongue out at him, and he tugs one of her braids gently in retaliation. She makes an indignant sound and breaks into a run; automatically, he matches her pace, giving chase. She giggles all through the short distance to her bedroom, and it feels like they’re kids again, like adulthood isn’t looming closer and closer, like nothing is hard, like everything’s easy.

“You made me _jostle_ her,” Betty accuses through a laugh, making a big deal of straightening Rosemary’s onesie.

Jughead fakes a dramatic gasp, pressing a hand to his heart before he flops backward onto her bed. Betty’s room is so _pink_ , he thinks absently. “The cardinal sin of parenthood,” he says. “Jostling.”

She sets Rosemary on his chest and then lays down next to him, both of their backs on her duvet, their legs dangling over the edge of the bed. “I can’t believe you pulled my hair. Are you _five_?”

“And a half,” he quips, which makes her giggle again. The sound of her laughter gets him going, too, and they have to look at her ceiling rather than at each other in order to finally stop.

 

 

 

 

He eats dinner with the Coopers, sitting in an extra chair pulled up next to Betty’s, bouncing Rosemary lightly on his knee since she’s just finished a twenty-minute wailing spree, the only cure for which seems to be some kind of soothing movement. Dinner is lasagna, still steaming with heat when the plate is set before him. Jughead is basically in heaven. The ricotta cheese melts in his mouth.

“So, Jughead,” Hal says. Both of Betty’s parents pronounce his name like the two syllables are separate words, like speaking them in succession feels uncomfortable in their mouths. “Betty told us about your mother’s migraines, and how difficult that makes it to have the, uh… baby, overnight.”

He glances at Betty. She flashes him a small, encouraging smile before cutting into her lasagna.

“Yeah,” he says slowly. “Yeah, I’m… really sorry about that, I know how annoying she can be at night… ”

“Don’t worry about it,” Polly says. “We all learned what it was like when I did this project. This time, Mom bought us all ear plugs.”

“It’s been a revelation, really,” Alice says in that smooth, Stepford voice of hers. “I sleep much more soundly when I don’t hear Mr. Cooper’s snoring.” Her eyes drop to his empty plate. “Seconds, Jughead?”

After dinner there are brownies, and then Betty offers him tea. He stays at the table and watches her putter around the kitchen, filling the kettle, selecting mugs, breathing in the scent from a little jar before she takes two teabags out of it.

The tea is peppermint. He drinks it when it’s still just a little too hot, warmth settling in his stomach and seeming to spread through his limbs. Betty positions Rosemary on a throw pillow atop a chair and sets up a Scrabble game.

They play twice. Jughead wonders, briefly, if they should invite Archie, but he doesn’t voice the thought. He feels happy and full and enraptured by Betty’s fingers positioning tiles carefully on the board, by the musical notes he’s discovered in her voice, by the luminosity of her smile when she gets a particularly good triple-word score. He feels as though he’s in a dream.

 

 

 

 

He’s reluctant to leave. Betty stands with him in the entryway as he puts his shoes back on, Rosemary cradled in her arms, each blink of her eyes seeming heavier than the one that preceded it.

“I hope you get some sleep,” he says.

“Yeah.” She covers her mouth as she yawns. “Me, too.”

He studies her face. He wants to hug her and fall back into the dream; he can imagine how warm she’d be, how her breath would brush over his shoulder, how her lashes would flutter like butterfly wings against his neck.

But he’s not quite brave enough for the things he imagines. “Thanks again, Betts,” he forces himself to say. He reaches a hand out and touches Rosemary’s stomach, which is just a touch too hard beneath her onesie to be real. He lets his thumb brush over Betty’s knuckles.

“Don’t mention it,” she says, and then reminds him yet again, “My dad can definitely drive you home.”

Jughead shakes his head and shoves his hands into his pockets. “The bus is fine.”

She bites the corner of her bottom lip, and for a split second, he’s overwhelmed with the urge to kiss her. He tucks his chin a bit, as if putting even one more millimetre of space between their mouths will prevent him from acting on the impulse.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?” she asks.

His body goes warm again, like it had at her kitchen table, drinking peppermint tea. “Yeah,” he promises. “See you tomorrow.”

 

 

 

 

**seven.**

He peeks his head into his parents’ bedroom the next morning to make sure his mother is home from her night shift. She is, so he heads off to Betty’s with the knowledge that someone will be there when Jellybean is dropped off later in the day.

Polly opens the door of the Cooper house, a smudge of flour on her face. She’s already walking away before the door is even entirely open, calling, “Betty’s in the living room!” over her shoulder.

Sure enough, he finds Betty sitting on the sofa, wearing a tank top and the same sweatpants as yesterday with an open bathrobe thrown overtop. Her school-issued copy of _Romeo and Juliet_ is at her side, and Rosemary is on her lap.

“I’m scared that if I move, she’ll cry,” she tells him, yawning. “You can sit down, but do it _slowly_.”

He does as told, sinking down onto one of the sofa cushions as slowly as he possibly can. “Long night?”

“You picked a good name for her,” Betty says dryly. “She’s demon spawn.”

He smiles a little. “Do you want me to take her for a bit? You can take a nap.”

“No, I’m up,” Betty says firmly. The bleary look in her eyes contradicts her words, but he doesn’t point that out. “I really need to finish this play today,” she sighs, casting a glance at her Shakespeare text. “Polly’s making pancakes. How many do you want?”

“Uh… two?”

She levels him with a _look_ and calls, “Make four for Juggie, Pol!”

“Elizabeth, really,” Alice says, swooping into the room. Jughead nearly jumps at the sound of her voice; he hadn’t heard her approach. “Is this really how we look when we have a guest? Go brush your hair and put on a proper shirt.”

Betty heaves a sigh and transfers Rosemary to Jughead’s lap with the utmost delicacy, neither of them daring to breathe. The look of sheer relief on her face when the baby remains silent is almost enough to make him laugh, but he doesn’t dare.

 

 

 

 

Once they’ve had their fill of pancakes, Betty washes dishes and Jughead dries, Rosemary set upon a pillow on the table so that they’ll hear her if she cries. The faux-domesticity of it all should be eerie, he thinks, but it’s not. Betty’s turned the radio on and she sings under her breath as she rinses a spatula. She’s a terrible singer - totally off-key - but the lilt of her voice makes him smile as he runs cutlery through a dish towel and drops forks and knives into the drawer with their mates. Betty does everything with feeling, even singing along with a man crooning about his wife’s affair; it’s enough to melt even the hardest heart.

When the kitchen is sparkling clean, they go up to her room to read Acts IV and V of _Romeo and Juliet_ : they each take an eponymous character and split the rest of the cast depending on the scene. Jughead has, in the past month, attempted to read Shakespeare aloud with Archie, who was struggling so profoundly it seemed like hearing the words aloud might be a helpful step, but reading with Betty is an entirely different experience. For one thing, she doesn’t stop at the end of the every line, regardless of whether or not there’s any punctuation, and for another, she doesn’t burst into hysterical laughter when he’s reading Lady Capulet and says, “What, are you busy, ho?”

Betty reads softy and seriously, in a tone that both attempts to capture of the mood of a given line and that carefully absorbs the words on the page, packing them away in her mind for the year-end test. She reads Juliet’s final speech in an easy cadence and then glances up at him - he’s taller than Betty now, even when they’re sitting down; his torso must be longer.

“That… has a double-meaning, right?” she asks. “The whole thing with the dagger.”

Jughead feels betrayed by his brain when the image of Betty holding a condom-covered banana pops into his head, and betrayed by his body when it seems, ridiculously, to enjoy that image.

“Uh, yeah,” he says, tugging at his beanie so that it rests more firmly onto his head. “I think so.”

 

 

 

 

The play read, Betty decides she wants to watch the ’96 movie with Leonardo DiCaprio. When he asks if it’s on Netflix, she presses her lips together for a beat and then admits that she has the film on DVD.

“Wow, Betts,” he teases, holding Rosemary’s bottle-simulator in her mouth while Betty plucks the movie from her bookshelf. “Your DiCaprio crush is out of control.”

“Please,” she says, leading the way to her family’s basement rec room, “You basically have his haircut, and _I’m_ the one with a crush?”

“I do not have his haircut,” Jughead argues, affronted.

“Yes, you do,” Betty insists as she turns on the television. “It’s just hidden beneath your hat.” Kneeling in front of the DVD player, she flashes him a grin over her shoulder. “It’s okay, Juggie; it’s a heartthrob haircut.”

“I am shaving my head,” he announces dramatically, flopping down onto the couch’s overstuffed cushions, and even though she’s no longer looking at him, he’s pretty sure he can _hear_ Betty’s own dramatic display of an exaggerated eye-roll.

She falls asleep fifteen minutes into the movie, clearly still spent from her night with the doll-baby. Jughead doesn’t mind, content to watch the movie on his own and let her sleep, but then ten minutes later she shifts, and her body falls against his, her cheek smushed against his shoulder.

He freezes, and struggles to pay attention to the rest of the film.

 

 

 

 

Betty wakes when there are only a few minutes left in the movie, rubbing at her eyes with a downright adorable sleepy frown on her face before she blinks blearily and tips her head back to look up at him. “Hi,” she murmurs.

“Hey,” he replies. Their faces are way too close.

In a single smooth movement, she straightens up and tugs the elastic out of her hair. Blonde waves fall onto her shoulders for just a moment before she gathers them up into a ponytail. “I’m sorry I fell asleep.”

“It’s no problem,” he says, feeling bizarrely light without the weight of her pressed to his side. “Rosie didn’t make any noise or anything, so…”

She looks at him, eyes still a touch hazy from sleep, and grins slowly. His heart seems to expand at the same rate as her smile, until it’s ready to burst in his chest. “You called her Rosie,” she says.

Jughead can’t do anything but shrug, not quite meeting her eyes.

She peers over at the doll. “You think she liked the movie?”

“Yeah,” he says, relieved at the turn in the conversation; this kind of banter, he can handle. “She was completely riveted.”

“Well, don’t worry, Rosemary,” Betty says. “When you grow up into a fake person, we’ll let you date any other fake person you want, and there won’t need to be any tragedies.”

“Anybody but Tron,” Jughead amends. “Pretty sure that kid’s been dropped on his fake head by now.”

Betty breathes a soft laugh that turns into a yawn. She slouches back against his side while the credits roll.

 

 

 

 

**eight.**

“I’m so tired I could fall asleep right here,” Archie sighs, poking at his cafeteria jello with a plastic spoon, his head resting heavily in one of his hands.

“You can fall asleep on me,” Jughead jokes without thinking. “Betty did it yesterday.”

On the other side of the table, Kevin’s tired eyes suddenly seem more alert, flicking rapidly from Archie to Jughead to Betty and then to Jughead again before settling on Betty, narrowing slightly.

Archie’s response is just an exhausted, “Huh?”

“I passed out on Jughead when he came over yesterday to help with the baby,” Betty says simply, her voice even. “He made an excellent pillow. You should give him a try.” She sends Jughead a little smile that makes the back of his neck prickle with heat.

“Nah, I’m good,” Archie sighs.

“Your loss, man, it was a one time offer,” Jughead says, and then snags the cup of jello that Archie is very clearly not actually going to eat.

“My parents think it’s totally hilarious when I complain about being tired,” Archie says, his voice now slightly muffled as he rests his head on his forearms, which are folded atop the table. “They’re like, ‘Archie, you have no idea how much work a real baby is. You were so colicky and you always wanted to be held.’ And I’m like, yeah, but you signed up for me.”

“I think that’s the point, Arch,” Betty says. “To convince you to only have babies you sign up for.”

“I’m convinced!” he says, and in a moment of perfect comedic timing, lifts his head to check out Ginger Lopez as she walks by in a mini skirt. Jughead rolls his eyes.

“Well I, for one,” Kevin says, “am very glad I’ll never have to worry about accidentally impregnating anyone. This past week has been brutal.”

“We already learned to avoid that, though, didn’t we?” Archie asks. “With the condom thing?”

And of course, at that very moment in time, because the fates like to bestow cruel twists upon him, Jughead glances at Betty just as she’s biting into a banana.

 

 

 

 

**nine.**

The penultimate day of the assignment brings another gym class: tennis, this time, rather than volleyball. Jughead intends on silently suffering through the forty-five minute class, as always, and is taken aback when Betty basically skips to his side when they’re told to choose partners.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hi,” is her easy reply, “Want to play with me?”

It’s reminiscent of nine years and some months ago, a little blonde girl in Archie’s back yard extending a dinosaur toy towards him (triceratops, his favourite, though she couldn’t possibly know), her small voice asking _wanna play?_

Then and now, his answer is the same: “Okay.”

Their usual partners, Kevin (hers) and Ethel (his) pair up with each other instead; they look curious, but neither of them protests the new arrangement. Jughead positions himself on one side of the net, Betty goes to the other, and they begin to play tennis.

She’s a better athlete than him, and she’s winning in minutes, calling out their scores every now and again in a mildly hesitant voice, like she’s sorry that she’s kicking his butt.

“Thirty,” she says, pointing to herself, and then, “love,” as she points to him before preparing another serve, and the sound of her voice calling that word across the net makes him feel as pathetic as Archie eyeing Ginger Lopez in the caf.

 

 

 

 

“Two gym classes and she never got hit in the head,” Betty says proudly afterward, carrying Rosemary in one arm.

“Someone should give us an award. I’ll call _Today’s Parent_ and pitch it.”

She laughs, giving her head a shake at his sarcasm. “Seriously, we make a pretty good team, don’t you think? With her, I mean.” She nods toward Rosemary. “I don’t know if I’d pick you as my partner for doubles tennis.”

“Ouch, Betts,” he says on a laugh.

“You kind of suck,” she says, but it’s not even close to being an insult, not with the way her nose crinkles in a silent _sorry_. “But really, Juggie. I’m glad you’re my partner. Thanks for being such a good one.”

Keeping his voice light but meaning it fiercely, he says, “Anytime.”

 

 

 

 

**ten.**

On the very last day of the assignment, Jughead begins to wonder if Rosemary has gained sentience, because it seems, from the moment Betty hands her over to him, that the infant doll has taken a dislike to him. She cries during the hand-off and is soothed by a feeding, cries half an hour later and stops only when he begins to rock her in his arms in class, which makes him feel somewhat absurd - and then ten minutes later, she’s crying _again._ His teacher sends him an unimpressed look, and he excuses himself from the classroom.

He can’t figure out what it is that’s giving her the signal to cry. He just fed her, the light that indicates the need for a ‘diaper change’ is definitely off (he checked twice), and he’s tried rocking her. He paces the hallway with her and huffs a sigh, looking into her face as he says, “C’mon, Rose.” He stares at her imploringly, as though she has the ability to communicate with him, but of course she doesn’t, and she only keeps crying.

He keeps walking back and forth by a bank of lockers, bouncing her gently in his arms. He receives a sympathetic look from a girl passing by and a round of snickering from a couple wanna-be varsity football players before he finally gives up and heads for Mrs. Arlington’s math class.

He knocks and manages to wait for the teacher to open the door before he says, raising his voice a bit to be heard over Rosemary’s incessant wails, “Hi, sorry, I need to borrow my fake baby’s fake mother.”

Betty hops to her feet immediately. “Sorry for the interruption,” she tells Mrs. Arlington angelically, her expression apologetic, before she gives him a nudge backward and steps outside of the classroom, closing the door behind herself. “What’s wrong?” she asks, reaching for Rosemary.

“She won’t - ” And at that very second, Rosemary goes quiet. “Oh, you are kidding me,” he says. “She’s been crying for an hour!”

She smiles sympathetically. “Sometimes you just kind of need to bounce her. Like she’s a real baby.”

“I did! I did _exactly_ what you’re doing right now.”

“It’s all in the knees,” Betty explains.

“Come on,” Jughead protests, trying not to whine. “Her software can’t be _that_ specific.”

She shrugs and hands Rosemary back. “Here, try it.”

He tries to mimic everything Betty was doing - one hand on Rosemary’s back and a soft, continuous bouncing of his knees - but he barely has time to even _try_ and get it right before she’s crying again. He returns her to Betty and says, in disbelief, “She likes you better.”

“Juggie, she’s not real,” Betty reminds him, a glint in her eyes. She’d be laughing at him if she didn’t feel bad for him, he can tell.

“She’s acting like she is,” he grumbles.

“Aw, are you jealous?” she teases. “Did you want her first word to be _dada_?”

He crosses his arms and leans back against the wall. “You mock me now, but just wait until her first word is _murder_. Sentience in AI is on the horizon.”

“Ignore him,” Betty tells Rosemary.

“She says, speaking to the baby as if it understands. You know I’m right.”

“I know you’re _something_ , Jughead Jones,” she says with a shake of her head, the little hint of exasperation in her voice overpowered by something else, something brimming with affection, something even more generous and tender than the smile she bestows on Rosemary when the baby finally ceases her racket.

 

 

 

 

**eleven.**

“Can you believe it’s over?” Betty asks, leaning her shoulder against the locker next to Jughead’s. She’s got a binder and a textbook in one arm, Rosemary in the other, and a smile as sweet as a sugar cookie - it’s ridiculous how often she reminds him, metaphorically, of dessert. “We made it.”

He nods, nudging his locker closed with one foot. “Excellent co-parenting, Cooper. I’d high five you, but you don’t have any free hands.”

“Take your baby, then,” she teases, holding Rosemary out to him. Only a second after he touches her, mechanical wailing wills the air.

“ _Seriously?_ ” he says, and again, he catches himself looking at the doll-baby like she’s an actual human who will respond to his indignation in some way. He commences patting her back steadily, his stomach twisting almost pleasurably when he catches Betty’s grin before she manages to bite it back.

“One last lesson in the benefits of birth control,” she teases, and he lifts one eyebrow, because those words are outside the G-rated realm that most of her humour tends to exist in. Her cheeks go the softest pink, like they had when she’d been rolling a condom onto that damn banana, and she pulls her sleeves down over her hands slightly before she crosses her arms over her chest. She seems like she might be nervous, and Jughead is decidedly nauseated.

“Good for you, Rose,” he tells the baby, who has quieted since he’s started bouncing her lightly in his hold. “You got through to America’s youth. You’ve fulfilled your purpose.”

Betty rolls her eyes. “I really can’t wait to sleep through the night,” she says on a sigh, as though she’s already imagining the bliss of uninterrupted slumber. “But I think it might feel kind of weird.” She glances from his face to Rosemary and back again. “I’ve kind of gotten used to her, difficult as she may be.”

“Makes sense.” His voice comes out so soft it almost surprises him. “You - I mean this in the least creepy way possible, I really do… you’ll make a good mom someday, Betts.”

The pink in her cheeks darkens, turning almost mauve, and the smile she gives him blossoms slowly. “Thanks, Juggie,” she says, looking at him through her lashes like his words have made her shy.

She is so beautiful in her navy dress with the thin white stripes, so beautiful with her blush-stained cheeks and her smile like a flower opening to the sun. She is so beautiful it makes him ache.

He swallows forcefully and tries to harness that ache, to find confidence in her demurely lowered lashes, and says, “Also… ”

The bell rings.

Students’ voices grow louder in the halls, lockers clang shut, and, true to form, Rosemary begins to wail.

The moment is gone.

Betty’s still smiling at him, but it’s different now - or rather, it’s _not_ different anymore. All the shyness is gone, and the smile on her face is her usual one, warm and charming, easily awarded.

“Let’s go say goodbye to parenthood,” she says on a half-sigh, taking Rosemary from his arms and instinctively rubbing the infant doll’s back.

She leads the way down the hall, and he follows.

 

 

 

fin.


End file.
